Consumers get excited over iPad 2

Article from:

US

Article from:

UK

Article from:

Germany

Wed, 09/03/2011 - 11:24

On March 2 2011, Steve Jobs CEO of Apple unveiled the iPad 2, the successor to the extremely popular iPad. The iPad 2 will become available in the US next week and in 25 other countries including the UK and Germany a fortnight later and boasts a revised slimmer and thinner design as well as front and back facing cameras.

The announcement of the iPad2 led to an immediate rise in Buzz for Apple in the UK, rising from +20 on the day of the announcement to +37 by March 7. Looking at Buzz in combination with the Attention score, we can see that over half the population have heard something about the iPad in the last two weeks and a vast majority have heard something positive.

Interestingly, the rise in scores in the US was much less marked (admittedly from a higher starting point), going up from +30 to +35. However, the brand is already showing signs of declining scores.

In Germany, there is lower base excitement about the iPad 2 but we have seen a rise there from +13 to +21.

The biggest drag on the Index score is value perceptions - in the UK they even have a negative score.

Furthermore, recent data from YouGov's TabletTrack, a quarterly survey of a nationally representative and tablet owning audience on tablet perceptions, shows that price is a key block to the iPad becoming a mass market product with 31 per cent of rejectors saying it is too expensive.

Apple will want to turn the positive buzz it has created into an improvement in value perceptions if it wants to overcome that barrier to purchase.

In all three countries, Apple has seen a rise in Index scores (the combined sentiment scores on all key BrandIndex measures apart from Buzz) but that increase has been much less dramatic than Buzz (from 17 to 21 in the UK for example). This suggests that excitement has been created but most people are waiting for more evidence before they deliver a verdict.